Covid-19 has made Georgia poorer. This is what every recent figure for the pandemic 2020 tells us. Average monthly income, for example, decreased by 6.4% per household and by 4.4% per capita, amounting to 1,100 GEL and 321 GEL correspondingly, - show preliminary data from the Statistics Office of Georgia (Geostat). At first sight, the main component that could be driving the increase in monthly income going forward seem to be remittances. In the first 4 months of 2021, remittances to Georgia increased by 48% ($ 225 million) compared to 2020, reaching a record $ 693 million. This year, the largest remittance - $ 194 million - came in April, up 145% from April 2020. According to the World Bank, by the way, Georgia ranks 21st in the world in terms of dependency on remittances. Almost 13% of the country's economy is generated by remittances sent by Georgian citizens working abroad. Without these funds, the size of the country's local demand would have been much smaller.
